However, as qualified as they might be, they could be missing one critical component of the STEM field – art.I pursued an education and career in computer science and
mathematics. And I know only too well that in the field of computer
science, there is often an emphasis on elegance and beauty alongside
sheer practicality. Indeed, programming itself is sometimes referred to
as anart.It is the same in related fields. The discipline of mathematics has long
championed beauty as an important quality of ideas and proofs. And, of
course, many engineers value elegance and beauty as important components
in their designs and solutions...Mathematical beauty around us Similarly, ideas of beauty and poetry have always been important in mathematics.

Prominent mathematicians and computer scientists have long embraced
elegance, beauty, poetry and literacy in the code that they write and
the theorems that they prove.

These ideas, in fact, have been around for millennia. Indeed, the
extreme separation of the disciplines is relatively new in Western
history.

Those doing science (natural philosophy) and mathematics were also
often doing poetry and music. Many of today’s disciplines were subsumed
as philosophy. So contemporary surprise at the idea that science and
mathematics could be poetic is a somewhat recent phenomenon.

For example, Pythagoras was a philosopher/scientist/mystic/mathematician who explored beauty in art and music.

This attention to beauty and pattern continued through Fibonacci and beyond.

Fibonacci (13th century), considered to be the leading mathematician in the Middle Ages, is probably best known for theFibonacci Sequence
named after him: a number in the sequence is the sum of the previous
two numbers (eg, start with 1, 2; then add to get 3. Then add 2, 3 to
get 5, and it goes on: 1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,…). Fibonacci discovered that much else that we regard as beautiful follows this elegant pattern.

This technical, mathematical beauty is evident in all of nature –
from flower petals and shells to spiral galaxies and hurricanes.Read more...

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About Me

Hello, my name is Helge Scherlund and I am the Education Editor and Online Educator of this personal weblog and the founder of eLearning • Computer-Mediated Communication Center.
I have an education in the teaching adults and adult learning from Roskilde University, with Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Human Resource Development (HRD) as specially studied subjects. I am the author of several articles and publications about the use of decision support tools, e-learning and computer-mediated communication. I am a member of The Danish Mathematical Society (DMF), The Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics (DSTS) and an individual member of the European Mathematical Society (EMS). Note: Comments published here are purely my own and do not reflect those of my current or future employers or other organizations.